by Willa Hart
“I’m taking us a little farther south than we’ve gone before,” Tamar said as we rolled south through Turdzi, the nearest village to our hideout. “I’m still not sure how this ‘radar’ of yours works, Favor, but keep trying, even when we’re covering old ground. They might be moving your friend around.”
I gave her a rueful smile in the rearview mirror. “Don’t worry about that. I try every hour of every day.”
As the ersatz leader of our little group, Kellum rode shotgun, while I sat snuggled between Danic and Ryen. The twins took up the half-sized third row behind us. Tamar caught my eye and gave me an encouraging, if slightly grim, smile in return.
A blind man could see Tamar smiled a lot. She had the laugh lines to prove it, but something about her demeanor gave her the air of someone who’d just clocked out of the graveyard shift at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere. Happy to see you, but exhausted by all of the drama in the background. I could see why Lazlo had trusted her with our lives. I did too.
“Where are we headed this time?” Kellum asked as he pulled up a map on his phone.
“Sighișoara,” Tamar replied, though none of us could make sense of the word. “It’s a town just about the geographic center of Transylvania.”
Every single person in the car except Tamar froze. The air between us thickened with tension and awe. Naturally, Ryen was the first to break the silence.
“Did you just say…Transylvania?”
Tamar nodded. “Yes, why?”
We all exchanged meaningful glances. Again, as Minister of the Ludicrous, Ryen spoke for us.
“As in, Transylvania Transylvania? Where Dracula fed on the blood of humans?”
Tamar sighed heavily, as if it was a question she’d fielded a thousand times before. “Transylvania is a very large region within Romania. It has an ancient and proud history, Mr. Novak. Vlad the Impaler is a hero in our country, not merely some Sunday matinee movie monster.”
We all held our tongue out of respect for our host, but this time Hale couldn’t help himself. “So are you telling us that all this time we’ve been here, we’ve been in Transylvania?”
“Technically, you’ve been in Cluj County, within the region of Transylvania. But to answer your question, yes.” She turned in her seat for a moment to cast a glowering look at us all. “But don’t get any bright ideas. Bran Castle lies far to the south, in the middle of the country. Much too far away for fans of Dracula.”
“Aww,” Ryen whined next to me and slumped back in his seat, crossing his arms and glaring out the window like a petulant child.
After an hour of driving, Tamar turned off the main highway and bounced down a rough local road that took us to the top of a small mountain. It seemed like as good as place as any for me to try out my radar — or as Ryen called, my Zoe-dar. We piled out of the SUV and stretched our legs for a minute, before I took my place on the rear bumper of the car, as usual. It was the perfect place to zone out while not drawing attention from anyone around us.
And this time, a lot of other people were around us. This mountain must have been on some kind of tour map, because dozens of European tourists stopped in the roadside pullout to snap selfies, then hopped back in their rental cars and took off for their next photo op. My guys milled around me, hiding me from prying eyes, while doing their best to look like other tourists and not a band of dragons searching for an international cult of other, batshit-crazy dragons.
Honestly, they did a good job.
This time Kellum and Ryen blocked me from view, while Tamar led the others around the self-guided interpretive tour. I was just about to close my eyes and revert into my vision state when Kellum tried to micromanage my visions.
“Try to clear your mind,” he suggested, as if I needed the help.
“Aw, bless your heart,” Ryen said in an exaggerated Southern accent. Of course, anyone who’s ever met someone from the South knows that sweet-sounding comment means something entirely different than it implies.
Kellum grimaced and gave me an apologetic look. “Sorry, I’m just keyed up.”
I took his hand and squeezed. “Join the club. Now if you’ll excuse me…”
The moment my eyes closed, my head tipped back against the rear door of the SUV as I relaxed into my vision state. Tendrils shot out from me, searching the void for any sign of Zoe. I focused on my favorite memories of her — a lifetime of them. Forgetting that other people might be watching me, I accessed my emotions, both good and bad, allowing them to guide me.
Nothing. I might as well have been trying to find my favorite fictional character.
Then something hit me, out of the blue. Like a rocket finding its target. Like a dart hitting the center ring. Like a baseball landing in the catcher’s glove.
Opening my mind’s eye, I looked up at a man glaring down at me. The verdigris covering his body told me it was only a statue, and not a hateful human ready to pierce my heart with his sword. But his face looked familiar. With a start, I realized it was the same man in the painting hanging in Bertram Trinkas’s study back in Bel Air — St. Michael. And just as he’d been slaying a dragon in the painting, he’d been immortalized in bronze doing the very same thing. Even so, he still filled me with revulsion.
The image came and went so quickly it could have been a flicker on a TV screen, but I saw it clearly and it made my heart skip a few beats. I was onto something.
“Already?” Ryen asked, as I rubbed my eyes and pulled myself back to reality.
“Favor, you were only out for a few seconds,” Kellum added.
I grabbed their hands and dragged them over to where Tamar stood with the others, reading an aged plaque. “Tamar, is there a statue of St. Michael somewhere around here? Twenty feet tall, tarnished bronze, killing a—”
“Yes! I know that statue very well, unfortunately. What did you see?”
I shrugged. “That’s it. Just for a second, but it was the most powerful thing I’ve seen since we arrived.”
“Then we’d better get moving,” she replied. “We’re at least an hour away from there.”
The statue of St. Michael looked smaller in real life, but no less upsetting.
After a tense hour-long drive south, we’d found ourselves in a large, bustling town square. Tourists and locals alike came and went from a variety of cafes and shops surrounding the square. Two stunning raven-haired women sat on a bench in front of the statue, speaking a language I don’t understand. Probably local women, catching up on each other’s lives.
A group of children were trying to coax a stray dog out from under a parked car. My history as a foster kid had shown me the dark underbelly of human behavior, and as we power-walked across the cobblestones toward the statue, I kept an eye on the kids. One little boy tossed a piece of food to the dog, who ignored it and the kids. The disappointed look on the boy’s face hinted that he held no evil intent toward the poor pooch.
A German couple haggled with the owner of an open-air souvenir stand. The husband held up a gaudy t-shirt while his wife waved colorful bills in the shop owner’s face. He hemmed and hawed, shook his head and clutched at his aching heart at their paltry offer, putting on a great show. But of course he eventually relented. The couple’s smiles hinted that the story of negotiating the price of the t-shirt would be told far more often than the shirt would actually be worn.
Watching over all of this activity stood the statue of the barbaric St. Michael, his sword drawn for all eternity as he towered over the prone hulk of a dragon at his feet. A large, ornate cathedral loomed behind him.
“Is this the statue you saw, Favor?” Tamar asked as we neared the abomination.
I nodded, unable to speak from the emotions the gruesome tableau raised in me.
“Strange,” she continued, her keen light brown gaze scanning the buildings surrounding the square. “This is not a very large town, but it attracts more tourists than most in the area. An unusual place to hide someone.”
“Favor saw what she sa
w,” Danic said brusquely, sidling up next to me as if I needed defending.
I slipped my hand into his, relishing the way the callouses on his fingers scratched against my palm. “Honestly, I have no idea. She could be in any one of these buildings.”
“Most of the shops also have flats above them,” Tamar pointed out, adding to the number of possible locations.
“What about the cathedral?” asked Ash, nodding toward the largest building in sight.
Tamar winced, then shook her head. “It is possible, but I find it hard to believe they have the connections to hide her inside, even if she was willing.”
“Besides,” I said, “her cell looked more industrial, like a warehouse or some other commercial space.”
Ryen came up behind me and leaned in close. “Or maybe Dracula’s castle?”
Before I could formulate an appropriately snarky reply, a commotion coming from an alley in the northeast part of the square caught our attention. A young couple bolted out of the shadows of the alley and sprinted across the square, glancing behind them the entire way. The source of their fear swaggered out of the alley, ten strong.
A group of young men in their early twenties swaggering anywhere was rarely a good thing, but every hair on my body stood on end as they strutted through the square. They looked like any other group of dipshits, dressed in all black, from their leather jackets to their tight t-shirts to their steel-toed work boots, and every one of them sported a shaved head. Dark tattoos covered most of their scalps, and though I couldn’t see the specific designs, I knew in my heart I wouldn’t like them.
I also knew in my heart that each one of them was a dragon keeper.
“Uh, Tamar?” Ryen inquired. “I don’t suppose Romania has a big punk music scene, does it?”
“What is punk music?” Tamar asked, but before she could get an answer, I jumped in.
“I’m not getting an outrageous musician vibe from them as much as a ‘guys who start racially motivated fights’ vibe.”
“I believe in America they might be referred to as skinheads,” Tamar explained.
“That’s fun,” Ryen growled, his upper lip quivering with hatred for the gang of keepers.
“Only here,” Tamar continued, “the melots don’t discriminate who they harass, as long as they’re human.”
“Melots?” Kellum asked.
“Dragon keepers to the jadokari.”
The melots made their way around the square like they owned the place. The shopkeepers withdrew as far as they could into their stores to avoid altercations as the men stalked past, shouting at each other in what I assumed was Romanian and laughing raucously. Then one of the German tourists said something to them in a scolding tone and that’s when shit got real.
A big, mean-looking motherfucker made a beeline for the couple, one of his minions following closely. As the vendor melted into the background of the town square, the leader snatched the t-shirt from the German man’s hands, while the smaller one stepped far too close to the woman. He sniffed her hair, and every time she tried to get away, he blocked her exit, pressing as much of himself against her as possible. She probably didn’t understand the things he was saying to her any more than I did, but neither of us needed a translator to know he wasn’t welcoming her to his country.
One of the other melots skulked closer to the group of little boys, who all darted away so fast it was almost if they’d never existed at all. The melot crouched down and whistled to the dog. When it refused to come out of its safe space, the young man grabbed a rock and hurled it at the dog. Thankfully, the rock hit the car instead of the dog, who scampered away with its tail between its legs.
That was the last straw for Danic.
“Hey, fuckhead!” he shouted, storming toward the rock-thrower.
Kellum tried to grab his arm, but Danic shrugged him off. Ryen hurried after his younger brother, while Hale murmured something into the ear of a very agitated Ash. They all followed Danic, a step or two behind, ready for battle, while Tamar and I remained where we were, under the murderous gaze of St. Michael.
“If you wanna pick on a dog,” Danic growled as he drew close to the offending melot, “pick on one that’ll bite back!”
Ten sets of shark-like eyes whipped around and locked onto Danic like he was a piece of chum. The rock-thrower’s face split in two with a malicious grin.
“Americans,” he jeered. “My dream come tr—”
POW!
To my surprise, it was Ryen’s fist — not Danic’s — that caught the melot on the chin, dropping him where he stood. The whole thing went down in slo-mo — Ryen’s arm slicing through the air, his fist connecting with the asshole’s jaw, the guy’s head wrenching hard from the blow, then his gradual slump to the ground.
No one breathed for a long moment. The very air in the square took on a cosmic weight as every head turned to see the bully get his just dessert. Then all hell broke loose.
Four melots swarmed Danic and Ryen, who obviously couldn’t shift into their dragon forms in the middle of a busy human village, but I didn’t need to worry. Within seconds, Danic had one under each arm, while Ryen threw one head-first into the other. A resounding crack echoed across the square and their bodies crumpled to the sidewalk. The ones Danic had a chokehold on struggled and flailed, but that was the extent of their defense.
Kellum and the twins had run toward the German tourists, and the two melots who’d been bothering them whipped knives out of their back pockets. But only for a minute. Kellum caught the smaller one by the wrist and twisted until the knife clattered to the ground. Ash kicked it away while Hale grappled with the bigger one.
Two more melots jumped on Hale from behind, pummeling his head, but Ash threw them off his brother like they were flies. But just like flies, they didn’t give up easily. The melots — the conscious ones, anyway — continued to rush my guys. No fewer than seven remained engaged at any given time. When one got batted away, another took his place. As keepers, they must have known they were dealing with dragons, but they showed no fear. Only hate.
Of course, they were no match for my guys, yet even as they took a brutal beating, the melots seemed almost…gleeful. As though this fight was what they’d wanted from the very start. Like they were happy about losing to a group of foreign dragons.
When I moved toward the fight, Tamar held me back and gave me a look. You know, the kind that means “Don’t even think about it, dummy.” As hard as it was for me to hold back, it was the right call. The guys had no trouble dealing with the melots, and I’d only draw more unwanted attention if I tried out my relatively new ass-kicking skills on the skinheads.
Only a minute had passed, if that, but nearly every door to every building around the square had closed tight, even the cathedral. Wary eyes peered from a few windows, then eased back into the shadows. This town was used to being terrorized by these keepers, that much was obvious.
The sound of running footsteps snapped me back to the present. My boys were fully engaged with nine melots, some of whom were in better condition than others. The tenth had broken free from the fracas and was sprinting toward Tamar and me, holding a vicious blade as long as my forearm. His attention was completely focused on me, his lips peeled back in a terrifying snarl as he closed the distance between us far faster than he should have.
Not a single one of my boys was close enough to save me, and I had no weapons to save myself. Somehow I doubted my fancy ninja moves could stop a blade that big from slicing off the nearest appendage. I stumbled backward as he charged at me, bloodlust in his eyes. My hands clutched at and covered the Heart in its home against my abdomen, a vain attempt to keep it safe, just like Max had instructed.
He couldn’t have been more than fifteen feet away — close enough to make out the intricate Celtic tattoos on his head — when a figure slid between me and my would-be killer. Tamar seemed slightly larger than before, as though her dragonic nature was ready to burst out and show the melots who was boss, bu
t she held it in check. Instead of shifting and blowing fire, she did something wholly unexpected. She spread her arms wide and her chest expanded as she took a deep breath. For a moment, I wondered if dragons could roast men to cinders in their human form.
Instead, she roared.
Unlike any dragon roar I’d ever heard before, the sound that came out of Tamar nearly knocked me over. Energy bounced off the buildings, reverberating through the square with a deep, penetrating quality that hit every human within hearing distance like the fist of a heavyweight champion. One by one — including the melots — they collapsed into a heap as the echo died away. Even the eyes watching from the gloomy shop interiors winked out.
And just like that, silence fell over the town square.
Tamar slowly turned toward me, her face as white as a ghost’s and her eyes as wide as if she’d seen one. The man who’d been running full tilt at me with a grotesque knife lay sprawled face-down on the cobblestones, completely motionless.
“Holy shit!” Ryen was the first to cry, grinning at Tamar as he gawked at the fallen melots surrounding him. “That’s so fucking cool. Can you teach me?”
“Not the time, Ryen,” Kellum said as he checked the pulse of the biggest melot. “Alive, but out cold.”
We stood around looking at each other for what seemed like hours but couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds. Time lost all meaning once everyone else had passed out and were no longer potential witnesses. We gathered back under the shadow of St. Michael’s statue and spoke in hushed tones, even though no one within earshot was conscious.
“You okay?” Ryen asked me, as the others watched carefully for my answer, which was a mute nod. They each reached out to touch me, nothing major, nothing sexual. It was as though they needed to feel their skin against mine to make sure I was fine. I needed the same.